Black Friday Debt, Flying Ads & Hologram ABBA vs Human Artists

Foreign. Welcome. Thanks for joining me today. We've got a fun filled Black Friday show for you today. We're going to take a look at Black Friday deals and buy now, pay later schemes that are quietly turning ordinary people into lifelong debt machines and what it really takes to break the habit. Then a National Guard soldier is killed near the White House, unfortunately, and Trump seizes on one gunman to justify punishing millions of immigrants. We'll also explore why California's skies may soon be filled with unignorable flying billboards, what Senator Ruben Gallego's leaked text really say about today's Democratic Party, and how hologram, ABBA and AI artists are squeezing the life out of working musicians. All that and more today right here unfiltered.

Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker.

Hi and welcome. Thanks for joining me today. We've got a fun filled show for you. Wishing you a happy Black Friday. If you're in a country that participates in that, that's if you're unfamiliar with that. It's the day after the Thanksgiving here in the United States when lots of businesses have massive sales. So it can be a time to get good bargains can also be a time to buy a lot of junk and rack up needless debt. According to the New York Times, Black Friday is no longer just about bargains. It's about how frictionless technology quietly fuels addiction and debt. The Times profiles Kristin Conti. She's a 60 year old real estate agent in Florida who calls Black Friday her Super bowl holiday deals make her feel happy and alive until she woke up with more than $50,000 in credit card debt, including $800 on something called Labu Blue Dolls and 500 on Christmas decorations. Now she's in therapy and spending the day at a farm instead of an online checkout line. Experts say she's not alone. Americans spend nearly $11 billion online on Black Friday last year. Back in 2024, with one click, purchases buy now, pay later, loans and saved cards, you get the dopamine hit long before the bill. Financial therapists urge people to add points of friction, like deleting store cards, waiting 24 hours before buying, and even listening to one full song before you hit buy. Okay, so what's the real message here? Yes, it's Black Friday. Yes, you can save, in theory, money by getting good deals. But be careful. The smartest thing to do on Black Friday is go outside, take a walk, spend time with family and friends, enjoy experiences. Don't buy more stuff unless it's absolutely, positively something you are going to buy anyway and really need. And there is a true, true discount right there. Let's dig a little bit deeper there. So here's my favorite thing to buy on Black Friday experiences. Today I'm going to go with my immediate family, my extended family, to an indoor putt putt place in Charlotte, North Carolina. Is. If you're, if you're watching this online, you can see I'm not in my normal studio. I'm on location visiting family in Charlotte, North Carolina. We're going to a place called the Pottery, which is an indoor putt putt, miniature golf place, restaurant. Sounds like a lot of fun. I'm not going to spend a single second on Amazon or any other platform. Yeah, I know. Maybe I could buy stuff for Christmas, but if I buy stuff now, I won't even remember it by Christmas. I'll either, you know, give it to someone already or buy it. Forget it. My biggest advice, when it comes to you and what's in your best interest, ignore the constant clamor to buy stuff. Now, I'm not a billionaire and I'm not a centimillionaire, but I can tell you I personally feel wealthy. Why is that? Is it because I have 10 Rolls Royces in my driveway? No, it's because I don't want any more stuff. I have the stuff I want and need. I hope you get to that point. But here's the thing. You can make $10 million a year, spend 11 million and always be in debt and always want more stuff. There will always be somebody richer than you unless you are the single richest person in the world. And if you look at the lifestyle of those people like an Elon Musk, constant turmoil, fighting bitterness, family members suing you, do you really want that? So remember, there's no one magic number of your own wealth or income where you can say, no, I've got it all I need. You can do that right now, provided you have enough food and proper shelter for yourself. So I would urge you figure out a way of, and I appreciate you watching me today or listening to this on any podcasting platform, but figure out some way of getting away from screens. Now, if you want to go to a mall just to walk around, get some exercise, look at pretty things, I like to do that sometimes. There's nothing wrong with that. But be careful about these deals because so often you scratch the the details off, you look behind the offer and quite often what they're saying is normally $200 and now $89. Turns out it's always $89 or common marketing scam is, yes, one day, 27 days ago, from midnight to 2am they did officially list the product for $200 for a couple of hours, but ever since then, it's $89. So, yeah, they can sometimes get away with this idea that, oh, it's marked down, you know, 72%. Not really. It's just a ploy to get you to pull out that credit card, to get you to push that one click. How about this? For your Black Friday, for your holidays, spend more time with family and friends doing things. You know how much it costs to go for a walk right now? Nothing. You know how much it costs to sit out in your backyard or a deck or a patio, if you have one, and talk to a friend or family member? It cost absolutely nothing. If you, if you are going to spend money, I'd recommend you spend it on an experience. Now, that's not just TJ saying, you got to be more like tj. Everyone has to be like me. No, that's according to a consensus among psychologists and others who study happiness. It's ultimately experiences that we remember more, that we value more, not simply more. More stuff. Whether you're buying some new shiny object to wear as a piece of jewelry or a piece of clothes, whether it's $10 or a $200,000 car, all the research shows that after a few months, sometimes after a few days, it brings zero additional happiness to you. I'm here looking out for you on this program at Filtered, we try to look at all the news stories of the day, all the pop culture ephemera. We look at the Zeitgeist as a whole and try to figure out what's truly important for you to know, what messages are coming to you and then how can we filter these messages? Through the prism of communication skills, personal development skills, all with the goal of making you happier, frankly, and, and more successful in your personal life as well as your professional life. Now, a few more details on this Black Friday. This is big tech. Amazon, others are doing it. It's kind of a gateway drug to lifelong consumer debt. And look, I'm not holier than thou. There was a time in my life more than a quarter of a century ago, I had credit card debt, I had IRS debt. So I'm not telling you I've been perfect. But I can tell you one of the best feelings in the world is knowing that your credit cards are 100% paid off every month. That's not happening for most Americans. And because of that, there's massive, massive credit card debt and that's the worst interest to pay. You're not getting any return on your investment as you might for a house or education. It is just pure, pure debt eating away not only at your present life, but your future life. So I'm begging you, don't buy something on credit if you can't pay it off 100% today. That's a general rule of thumb that I think is outstanding advice. Other tips that are quite commonplace, wait 24 hours before making a purchase. You could say, well, TJ, the deal's only for today. Tomorrow it's up $100. TJ, do you really need an extra lawn chair? Do you extra? Do you really need that blanket that doubles as a sweater? Do you need more clutter in your house? Maybe what you need is less clutter. Maybe what you need is throwing stuff away or giving it away, donating it, selling it, getting it out of your house. Having a less cluttered house can often result in more happiness. So I wish I had some deal for you. And yes, you can see right now on this show I'll be playing ads that talk about, you know, selling my books and my courses and access to my clone. But I'm not going to give you a Black Friday discount. I want you to buy it just because you think it could help you and it's the best value for you now or any other time. So apologies if you were looking for a Black Friday deal here, but none for today. The best deal of all, keeping your money in your pocket, keeping it invested, keeping your debt and your interest. You pay as close to zero as possible unless it is debt that truly, truly has long term pay off for you. Back in a moment.

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Welcome back to Filtered I appreciate you joining me today. I'm TJ Walker here with you seven days a week looking at the top stories of the day, filtered through the lens of communication and personal development skills. All with the goal of making you more successful in your personal life as well as your professional life. Okay, this next story tragic. One National Guard soldier is dead and another is fighting for life after a shooting just took place blocks from the White House. According to the Times, the suspect is an Afghan man who worked with a CIA backed paramilitary unit and came to the US after the Taliban takeover. President Trump called Specialist Sarah Beckstrom savagely attacked and as the Associated Press reports, use the killing to vow to, quote, permanently pause migration from all third world countries, even though this suspect was granted asylum during his own first term. That's right. The suspect, the killer, gained entree to the United States during Trump's first term. Decades of research show immigrants are less likely to to commit crimes than US Born citizens. A fact that you can say till you're blue in the face, but doesn't really change the immediate emotional, guttural reaction many people have in many politicians. That evidence rarely survives a bad headline. Authoritarians have always relied on this dynamic. You can go back multiple points in US history and other history for examples. So, like in 1968, violence and clashes around the Democr convention in Chicago helped Richard Nixon sell law and order to anxious suburban moderates. It helped the Republican Party in 68 when there was violence coming from the other side. The more chaos people see, the easier it becomes to accept crackdowns that would once have seemed unthinkable. Okay, so what's the real message here? The Afghan, the Afghan migrant who killed the soldier in the United states near Washington, D.C. make no mistake about it, this is bad news, certainly for the family and the person killed, but it's bad news for anyone who believes that America should accept the best and the brightest from all over the world all the time. It's good news for authoritarians who are always looking, maybe even secretly hoping for violence as a way of cracking down because it mobilizes public opinion in their favor. Let's go a little bit deeper here. Again, this is, this is very bad news for people who care about the traditions of America. You can call me a conservative, you can call me overly conservative, but I happen to think what makes America great isn't just the strong dollar. It's not just our free market enterprise system that has more financial capital. It's our capital of bringing the best and brightest here from all over the world. We're able to pick the most motivated people who do whatever it takes to get to the United States. And now we have leadership saying we're just going to eliminate people from basically any poor country. Don't even bother to apply. Let's think about how that would have changed America if that had been the rule for say the last 60, 70 years. Well for starters, no Apple because Steve Jobs own father came from Syria. Not exactly a first world country then or now you've got people like Sergey Brand, depending on how you want to categorize Russia back in the day. Okay, so you have no Google. You wouldn't have any of the top leadership today of, of Google or Microsoft because they came from India, which while this economy is doing better, not what Trump would say is a first order, certainly not a G7, G8 nation. So you would dramatically, dramatically impoverish the United States if you could go back in time and say no immigrants and no one from, in Trump's words, third world nations. So this is a big problem. Again, our hearts go out to the family of Sarah Beckstrom, age 20. She did in fact die. The suspect is Ramanula Rockonwal, who drove across the country and allegedly used a.357 revolver. He is someone who gained asylum because of his involvement in Afghanistan. So after the Afghan war, the United States said, look, if you helped members of the military because the US Was an active, they were actively fighting the Taliban there. We did as we often do with situations like this. If you were an ally of the United States military, if you risked your life, and it was a life risking activity, if the Taliban found out you were helping the US they would kill you. And the procedure was if you had proof, evidence that you helped the United States military, you were able to gain special entrance to the United States. Now this happens to be a subject I know a little bit about because I did in fact sponsor an Afghan refugee myself because he helped me and he helped spread the idea of educating women. That was an offense to the Taliban. And I in fact brought an Afghan refugee to the United States was his sponsor. And I am, I'm happy I did. And I'm also happy and sad about the fact that he was here for a week, this was several years ago and said, TJ thanks a lot, I'm out of here. The United States is showing essentially content. This is not his words, but the United States is making it really, really difficult for me. Canada is showing me open arm treatment. Canada invited this Afghan refugee and this was a young man who against all odds, educated himself, became an entrepreneur, created online courses with students around the world, made money, saved money, and he's now taking his hard working, entrepreneurial brains, energy and is making Canada richer, not the United States, sadly. I think this is what we're going to see more and more of. So look, the days are gone when the United States can say, hey, we're the only game in town. There are a lot of great countries. Canada is much more open to migrants and refugees around the globe. Let's not forget that's, that's where Elon Musk ended up first. And I mentioned the example of maybe no Apple, maybe no Google. If we didn't have refugees, maybe Tesla and SpaceX and all that would be Canadian companies. If we had this same mentality. Of course, Trump feels like, okay, if you're a white guy from South Africa, that's special. All of Africa, bad exception if you're a white guy from South Africa. So I guess if he'd had his way, Musk would have still gotten in. But this is, make no mistake about it, this is, this is bad. This is bad for everyone. This is bad for people who, like myself, are conservative and believe in the conservative nature of America being inviting to people from around the globe. It's really bad for everyone unless you favor authoritarianism and you see, okay, here's a chance to get people angry. Because when people are angry and scared, which seeing shootings and murders from outsiders is scary, there's no doubt about it, they tend to rally around strongmen who say, forget the constitutional provisions, forget rights, I'm going to crack down. So this is basically bad news for our American economy. It's bad news for people who believe in traditional values of America wanting the best and brightest and most ambitious and people who are under attack in other countries. It's good news for authoritarians, unfortunately. So again, our, our sympathies go to the extended family. I might also point out, if you are looking to play the blame game, okay, you can blame people from so called third world nations. You can blame the people who let this guy into the country which was the Trump administration, the first one. But you can also blame a conservative culture that says we have to make guns readily available to everyone. In the United States, there is a reason that in places like Japan and most of Europe, this doesn't happen very much. And it's because you can't just go to any store and pick up as many guns and as many bullets as you would as if you were at a candy store. And my friends that's not because of a liberal permissiveness. It's because of a conservative culture that fetishizes guns and fetishizes gun ownership. And that's why we have so many gun deaths. And let's not forget the fact most gun deaths, most murders are not from migrants. They're not from refugees. They're not from people who just immigrated to the United States in the last two years. They're from people who grew up in America. That's where most gun death deaths come from. I'm TJ Walker. We'll be back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Filter. Thanks for joining me today. When the Sky Turns into a Political Billboard According to San Francisco Gate SFGate, California's next big political battlefield may not be television, social media, or even your mailbox. It may be up there in the sky. A company called Heli D plans to bring 400 square foot helicopter suspended led billboards to the 2026 Super bowl at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara and then across the state. It's a beautiful stadium. I've stayed across right across the street several times in the last couple of years. Beautiful stadium out there in California. The Federal Aviation Administration is allowing these flying screens to come within about 250ft of viewers, making ads, in their words, unignorable. Co founder Simon Powell says airspace is becoming the next battleground for audience attention and he's openly eyeing campaigns, calling the sky quote, a new visual frontier for brands and candidates alike. We've already let our phones, our sidewalks, and our stadiums be colonized by ads. Now the remaining common space over our heads is up for sale, including for political messaging. When democracy depends on thoughtful voters, do we really want our airspace turned into the world's brightest attack ad platform. I don't know about that. Okay, so what's the real message here? Marketers are constantly doing everything they can to reach your eyeballs, to reach your ears, and ultimately reach your brain. Now we're going to have billboards in the sky. It might be the greatest thing ever for marketers, and it might be the worst things ever for your consciousness and your psyche, because you can never get away of more bombarding ads. Let's dig a little deeper here. At some level, I do have a respect for the people who are putting this together. They're showing creativity, because with any sort of advertising, consumers become blind to it. There's what's called message blindness. If you go buy the same billboard every day for 10 years, you really don't notice it, but you can always notice something new. It's novel. Great advertising is always trying to come up with something different, unique. It could be the message, it could be the humor. It could be the graphics. It could be the sound effect. It could be the medium. As we talked about just last week, there's a new sort of billboard in the subway system in New York City that has smell as what attracts people, not necessarily the visual image. For, I believe it was for Body Works or one of the, you know, one of the mall stores that sells soaps and perfumes. So there's always going to be some innovation. Just when you think, I've seen it all, there's nothing new under the sun. Well, wrong. Humans are ingenious. There's always something new. Now, I could easily imagine, and I hate to say it, but it could be someone like a Mark Zuckerberg saying, hey, buy my. Reminds me I have my wrong glasses on today. Someone like Mark Zuckerberg could sell you his meta glasses and say, hey, we're going to put software on it so that it deletes any advertisements from the sky. So there may essentially be ad blockers. You can already get an ad blocker for your web browser, for your cell phone. I can easily imagine there being an ad blocker for sky billboards. We'll see. I hope I didn't just give an idea for Mark Zuckerberg to extract even billions of dollars more money from you and me. Okay, let's look at some more facts here. The. The Federal Aviation Administration has rules saying the flying ads can be as close as 250ft of viewers. Now, I don't know how much they weigh, but imagine where two of these. These ads are flying together, hit each other and fall on A stadium full of people. I hope it doesn't happen, but that might put an end to this very quickly. Now, a Smirnoff ad, the vodka company in Miami already tested 90 minutes of flight time. California is pitched as the next ideal step for flying billboards. So California, an innovator, and a lot of things media and pop culture related is sort of bringing this out and making it a big deal. Look, we're all past the stage where we can say all advertising is bad. Let's get rid of all ads. And I would be a hypocrite if I did that. I run ads on my show. I run video ads, I run audio ads. For those of you listening to this show on Spotify or Amazon Music or YouTube Music or iTunes, and those of you who read my newsletter, see text ads. So I can't be a hypocrite here. We do live in a culture, a capitalistic culture, and I'm a capitalist. That does require the free flow of information for products and services through advertising. But is it going to permeate every inch of our consciousness? Are we going to have to essentially pay now to go to some park where they have blocked, they bought the air rights to their space to prevent airplanes? Are we going to have a situation where the Grand Canyon park loses its federal funding and the people who manage the Grand Canyon are going to have to sell off the air rights to Smirnoff Vodka so that when you're down in the Grand Canyon, you're bombarded with billboards to help pay for the people running the park service? I hope we don't get to that. I really do hope we don't get to that. But it is. It is a challenging environment and I think is contributing to so many ills of society, whether it's obesity, because we're all bombarded with a thousand ads a day or more to eat junk food and to drink sugary drinks. It's why we have so much debt in the country. We're all bombarded with great deals and ad Buy this with one click, buy that with one click. The average person, according to many estimates, already sees at least 10,000 ads marketing message branding icons per day. So the genie's kind of out of the bottle. But I would like to be able to go for a walk, look up in the sky and enjoy the clouds, the sunset, the sunrise, and not be bombarded with ads. How do you feel? Let me know. You can place your comments on the video. If you're watching this on demand or live, you can also place Comments if you are watching or listening to this on any podcasting platform. And please take a moment right now if you are getting any value out of this show, whether today's your first day or you're a regular here. But please like the video or the audio. Leave a comment, follow sign up for notifications. And please please especially if you're on the podcasting platform, follow it and leave a review. It's extremely helpful. This is still a young new podcast. I'll be back with more in just a moment.

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You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Welcome back to Filter. Thanks so much for joining me. Senator Ruben Gallego and in the news According to leaked messages published by Human Events and amplified by various right wing activists, the Arizona US Senator Ruben Gallego unloaded on his own party in a private text exchange. Here's what he said that got a lot of attention. Quote, oh man, have you met my party? I've been yelling at them this whole time. Gallego said Democrats, quote, look like the not fun party, always telling and correcting people, end quote. These are his quotes. A Democratic U.S. senator, someone many people hope and believe will run for president in 2028. Then came the lines that went viral. He complained that Democrats are, quote, not allowing no men to men. I think he meant men to be men, women to be hot. He's saying the Democratic Party doesn't let men be men or women to be hot. We used to be the party of sex, drugs and rock and roll, he added. Now Democratic women look like Democratic men. Oops. Again the Democratic senator's words and Democratic men look like women. Well, you can imagine conservative media had a field day with that. After the texts were leaked, Gallego told ABC News it, quote, it's very heartbreaking That a friend of 20 years exposed the exchange but insisted the messages are a reflection of what I've been saying the whole time about where he thinks the party needs to go. Okay, so what's the real message here? Senator Ruben Gallego is someone seen as a real up and comer in the Democratic Party. He has a message that appeals to Democrats, but also moderates and those who occasionally vote for Republicans. So when he comes out saying the party, the Democratic Party is a party of no fun. And it's a party where the Democratic men kind of look like the women and the women look like the men, it's not a good look for the Democratic Party. This may ultimately help Gallego, as he is seen as a real straight shooter, but it's also a message to all of us. You put something in a text or an email, even if it's someone you think is the best friend, it might be shared with the whole world and come back to haunt you. Be careful. Let's dig a little deeper here. I do think that it's. Look, it's always fun if you see somebody you don't like embarrassed saying things that make them and their, their team, their tribe look bad. I get that. But I also think regardless of your party, what tribe you're in, what team you're on, there is something just sad about seeing private communication splattered out to the whole world in an attempt to make someone look bad. I don't like to see this. Regardless of whether you are a conservative Republican or a liberal Democrat or an independent or far right or far left, I do think that a little part of our humanity is chipped away and destroyed. When you shared some thought that you thought was a personal thought with somebody who's a friend, and now the whole world sees it. Do we really want everyone who's a politician, anyone who ever aspires to politics, to keep every single thought they've ever had in their head inside? Do we really want them calculating? Hmm. If I say this one true thought, if I'm actually honest and sincere with this friend, this could come back to haunt me in 20 years when I'm running for office. So let me be bland, boring, and say no comment. Even to my best friend, even to my spouse. Because who knows, I could get divorced and my spouse could leak this. I think that that's chipping away at some aspect of humanity. Now, the interesting thing here is the conservative media organizations that are having a field day with this are saying it actually makes the senator look cool because he's saying Things that they have been saying for a long time. So right now, this senator is, is still new enough in the Senate. He is attracting a lot of attention because of his ability to get votes in a swing state. And for that reason, some in the Democratic Party give him frankly, a lot more credibility than Governor Gavin Newsom. Or let's face it, if you get the Democratic nomination for governor in a place like California, you're going to win. If you get the Democratic nomination for Senate or governor in a place like Arizona, well, it's a coin toss. You got to really demonstrate your ability to appeal to a wide swath of the public. You have to really demonstrate your ability to seem moderate, to appeal to independent minded people, to appeal to moderate people, to appeal to people who want some issues, consider themselves conservatives. And Senator Ruben Gallego has done that and that's why there's a lot of buzz around him. So prediction. I don't think that this is going to come back to haunt him. It's kind of a one day story. What's the real message for you and me? I think all of us have to be a little more careful about putting anything in text. There is something permanent about that. Although these days you can have what you think is a private phone call and the technology on cell phones and every other device makes it easy to capture. But I think all of us have to really think about who is our inner circle, who are the people we really care about, who are our closest friends and allies. And I think you still have to let loose on that. I think you have to let your hair down and give honest opinions and not think about the cold hard calculation of how would this look if one quote were taken out of the context of the conversation and shown to the whole world? Because if you are thinking about never saying anything that could in any way make you look bad, I think it just turns you into a fake, phony person. It robs you of your humanity. But I do think you need to really think twice about, you know, sharing something with an employee you just hired three months ago. Someone is a political ally, but you've never actually had a meal with them. And others where you just assume it's off the record and it's private. It's really not. We live in times when people feel that, hey, I'm on another team now and if I can make you look bad, I'll do anything I can. The one saving grace is I think more and more people are seeing this happen to others and realize, hey, this could happen to me. So I do think there's a lot more sympathy for anyone who gets caught saying something that doesn't look good or makes them look bad or mean or nasty because people feel like, well, that can happen to me too. Ask yourself this. If every single email you've ever sent or every text you've ever sent were suddenly made public, how do you think you would look? I can tell you right now, I wouldn't want that to happen to me. And I don't think I really said anything that much more awful than you or anyone else. But let's face it, we've all had thoughts and said things in text and emails that other people could find offensive. Therefore, I think it's going to have less of a deleterious effect on someone's career when we see things like this happen. So the senator from Arizona, it's a one day blip. He's sort of leaning into it. Who knows, this might actually benefit his career long term. As hard as it is to imagine, we will find out. But meanwhile, try to be more careful about new hires, employees, people where it's just a professional relationship. Be a little more guarded. And I think that is the best way of preserving your own career and trying to minimize embarrassments like this more in a moment.

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More bad news for musicians, unfortunately. According to the Times, New York City is dangling nearly $50 million in tax breaks to bring the ABBA Voyage Hologram show from London to a new custom built 3,000 seat arena on 11th Avenue in Manhattan. The Pitch Digital Eternally young avatars, that's what they're called, backed by a live band, will draw almost 900,000 fans a year, while the real number or the real members of ABBA are in their 70s and 80s now. Zoom out at the same time, the same moment Songs with no human performers at all are climbing the charts. An AI artist called Breaking Rust just hit number one on Billboard's country digital song sales charts with Walk My Walk. We talked about that last week. Other AI acts like Solomon Ray in gospel and Cane Walker, no relation to me in country obviously, because it's not a human. Are grabbing up top chart slots and Billboard notes the first AI singer to make its radio airplay list. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of his synthetic tracks flood Spotify and every single day. So the city is subsidizing holograms, the charts reward algorithms. And real musicians are left wondering where exactly they fit in the new economy. Okay, what's the real message here? Look, I loved abba in the 70s and I love ABBA now, but the idea that the government of New York City is going to give $50 million to create a venue where tourists can come look at ABBA holograms, that's crazy. That's insane. And when you see at the very same time, AI created songs flooding Billboards top charts, if you're a professional musician, I don't know what you're doing now to stay sane because these look like end of times. Let's dig a little deeper here again, I. I don't hate ABBA. For a long time at the end of the 70s, they were considered cheesy. There was a whole anti disco movement. It. It sort of came back in the early 90s, starting with disco nights in Miami and New York and Chicago. And then they've had a resurgence. But how many billions of dollars do the guys. And it's basically the guys from abba because both couples got divorced. It was, it was two different couples making the band. And ABBA stands for. It's a. An acronym of the initials of the people's names. So they've had all their songs make so much money in the 70s. They've had mamma Mia. They've had the Mamma Mia movies, They've had Mamma Mia on Broadway and in London and off Broadway shows and touring Broadway shows. Yeah, they're popular, I get it. And then they started this thing where it's a live concert, but it's a hologram. So it's just digital bits now. I will give them credit there. They are gonna have a live band. So I guess some live musician is gonna get some kind of money. But still, the original members of ABBA can sit at home, they can sit in the nursing home, they can sit back and drink tea or warm cocoa, rock in a rocking chair and have millions of Dollars, money flowing in. Now, again, I don't look down upon any musician getting royalties from their work, but how many ways are we going to slice and dice it? This just seems excessive, so I don't blame them for trying to. I do think it's weird for someone to want to go to an ABBA concert where it's holograms. I get it. There's a community experience. You're there with thousands of other people. They're going to build a venue that apparently is going to hold 3,000 people. You can sing along, you can relive memories if you're like me and you were a teenager when ABBA was first on the charts. So I guess I'm ashamed to admit there's a chance I might go, but I'm not proud of it. I hope that I don't. Now, you're not going to Pay, I guess, $5,000 for a ticket like this, but we're still talking about ticket prices being 100, $198. I'm seeing this is money you could use to go actually see a real musician who isn't 195 years old. Why not support live music? Live musicians? I do worry that if incumbents who are already rich and successful can use every possible technology to extract every penny out of people who are interested in a certain niche, it makes it impossible for new players to enter. Now, we see this repeatedly with Facebook and Google. As far as Internet startups that want to get some piece of the, of the advertising pie, Google and Facebook squashed them. But now it looks like we're seeing the same technology forces combine with musicians to kind of squash new level competitors. Because the average new musician, who was pretty good, who 30, 40, 50 years ago, might have gotten a record deal with a major label, they're not getting those anymore. They're getting teeny tiny scraps from Spotify. And meanwhile, the Taylor Swifts of the world, the Drake's of the world, get tens of billions of dollars a year from the Spotify. And a lot of really good musicians are getting $10 a year. This is when things start to become stagnant because competition is squished out directly or inadvertently. And that is my concierge, my concern with A, these hologram concerts. But B, the idea that the government, through tax breaks and other things, is going to get subsidies to make this even more common is yet another example of our society, our governments, favoring the big guys, favoring the big incumbents, people who don't need it in the same way they give Billionaire sports team owners, billions of dollars to build stadiums, people who don't need it. Okay, I'm TJ Walker. This concludes the main section of our show today where we look at the top five issues. I appreciate that, but I want to close out today's show as I always do, answering questions from you. These questions take us away from the news of the day and allow us to go a little deeper to personal development, skills, habits for communication and other aspects so that you can be more successful. Today's question comes from Maria Alvarez. She is a student in my online course, the Complete Storytelling Course for speaking and Presenting. The question is, how can I use humor? Or how can humor be used effectively without distracting from the main message? Well, so humor is great. Anytime you can use humor in a speech, a presentation, a talk, it more often than not is great. Because if you're the typical business person or teacher or professor or entrepreneur, your audience is expecting you to be boring. They're expecting you to give a boring data, facts, bullet points, numbers. And they're expecting to say, oh, gosh, this is boring. Let me get my phone out so I can multitask. And the person really says something interesting. I'll put my phone down. When you use humor and someone actually laughs, they're telling you, hey, I'm listening to you, I'm understanding you. I'm responding to you. And I'm responding with a form of approval, which laughter is a form of approval. So I happen to think more people should try to use humor. But here is the secret. Your humor needs to be enhancing to your message. So if you're trying to sell someone a new vacuum cleaner and you start off with some joke that's sexist or racist, has nothing to do with vacuum cleaners not going to help. It's going to make people dislike you. It's going to make them tune out. So the starting point should be your message. What is the message you're trying to convey to make people take the action you want? Always think about that, the action you want the audience to do, the messages that would motivate them to do that. And then if you can tell a funny story to make the message resonate, then it's very powerful. So think about that first. Also think about messages that don't cut against who you are. Now, if you are known as a comedian who is racy and works blue, your audience is going to expect you to use curse words and f bombs. That's totally consistent with who you are. But if you're running for local city commission, as a straight laced, by the books efficiency person and everything out of your mouth is some obscene joke and it's just alienating parts of the electorate, that's not going to help. So I want you to be focused. I don't want you to be overly cautious and be like, I can never use humor, but I do want you to look at it from every perspective and say, is this going to offend people? I really don't want to offend. There may be times when you don't mind defending. That's okay. But make sure it doesn't confuse your audience. By all means. If you can use humor in a way that gets people listening and laughing, then you are going to be in much, much better shape. I'm TJ Walker. I'm wishing you a happy and successful Black Friday and I'm hoping you save money on Black Friday. Remember, the easiest way to save money on Black Friday. Don't buy anything unless you really, really need it and want it and can afford it without incurring any debt. Thanks so much. See you tomorrow.